Iterum cras conabor
by dktsubani
Summary: I'm not going to give up; you're my best friend, after all. There's always next time. [Time Loop / AU]


The first time I see you, you have sharp eyes with wary canniness and a green jacket. You are silent, and foreboding, and no one can stand up to your onslaught of power.

I still try anyway, but I fail, and fall.

That's alright. I'm not going to give up; you're my best friend, after all.

There's always next time.

.

.

The next time, you still have those sharp, cutting eyes, but are without that iconic jacket. Instead, it's a pair of glasses, wire-framed and bold.

You don't have perfect vision this time, I remember, and still I fall.

(Every time. But I don't mind.)

(_There's always next time._)

.

.

The third time, you die in a childhood accident that was supposed to leave you scared and wiser and wearier of the world, but instead leaves you crumpled on the ground and me with a funeral a week after.

.

.

The fourth time you do not survive infancy.

.

.

The fifth time is not your tragedy, but mine; I am left in an orphanage, far away from the place I am supposed to go, and so I do not meet you until you are on the TV screen of a run-down motel, celebrating your rise to Championship.

And still, I fail.

.

.

After a while I give up trying to make contact with you at the beginning, if things are not as they'd started that first time, so long ago.

Instead, I start to work and work and _work_, until my fingers are bleeding and I am without sleep for uncountable days, because every single time and in every single world the only reliable thing when everything changes is that if you are alive and _able_, you will _always_ be waiting at the top, having pushed yourself there.

And even though it nearly kills me, I will reach the top.

(I have to.)

.

.

I fail this time, too.

.

.

Again. And again.

.

.

One time, in a dark room where the only light is the moon's through the window, I begin to think about giving up; not just you, but on _everything_, because maybe, perhaps, this is not meant to be, and the being that had allowed this all to happen had been too tactful to say otherwise.

(But mainly because everything is worthless without _you_.)

It's a tempting thought; _This has gone on long enough_, I think, and the thought takes root and grows and grows until it lingers like a great tree, there and ready and waiting, patiently.

You'd never know if I give up, anyway, I reason to myself. You never remember; only I do, these days. And even then, it is useless.

And I nearly do – give up, I mean.

But then I see the words _Champion missing; League searching, Elite Four involved in investigation_ striding across a borrowed screen in a borrowed hotel room, and I know that I cannot.

(Because everything will have been _meaningless_ if I give up now.)

.

.

Again. And again. And _again._

.

.

Eventually, I realize: the only way for this to succeed is for me to cast away any attempts at befriending you, after one crucial moment.

(_This is the only way to stop me from killing you, even accidentally,_ I think, and ignore the feeling of having lost something.)

.

.

It is like coming back to the beginning, having reached the end: this last (first) time, I grow up in Pallet Town. We become childhood friends. You still don't remember anything that's happened, but that's alright.

But this time, you are wilder, louder, and yet still less-assured of yourself than you should be. The Pokemon Professor does not help, but still, I remain silent.

(Eventually I realize that we have switched places – now you are the assured one with something to prove, and I keep my silence and hoard my words until they are needed.)

You become the Champion. At least that hasn't changed.

But this time, I defeat you, and even as you grit your teeth and concede the title of Greatest, even as you withdraw into yourself, casting away your bravado that had become a second skin and enduring your Grandfather – no, the _Professor's_ – cutting words, I am glad.

This time, you will not burn yourself out.

(This time, you will not die.)

.

.

Loneliness is nothing new to me. If it makes you feel better, if it lets you _laugh_ again, I will willingly and gladly retreat to where you cannot see me, live with my presence that is so toxic.

I don't mind.

(I've done this again and again and _again_; a bit of solitude and cold temperatures will not kill me.)

And yet, still – even after _everything_ –

You ask me to come back. Repeatedly.

(I don't _understand_ – you are still bitter about me beating you – _You would have died little by little every day_, I want to say – but you swallow that bitterness and bring me supplies so that I might last another day and ask me to _Come down, damn it, stop being a hermit and just. Come back._)

Maybe one day you will remember; maybe not.

But regardless, this time, I want to be _selfish_.

(Contrary to all of the evidence of the tragedies that will follow if I do, this time, I am selfish.)

.

.

You don't die.

.

.

_Will it be worth it? Dialga asks, and I smile._

_It will be._

_Then go, Red of Pallet Town, once-Champion and Pokemon Master, and try again._

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* * *

Author's Notes

If it isn't clear by now, this entire thing is from the POV of Red, who's somehow convinced Dialga to give him multiple chances/stick him in a time loop until he can save Green. My thoughts on this are that Green somehow burns himself out/regrets becoming Champion/otherwise dies after he wins the entire League, and that at first he'd always been the stronger of the two.

The last universe/timeline/"time" mentioned is the canon one that we all know and love.

"Iterum cras conabor" is, according to my sources, Latin for "I will try again tomorrow."

This is a part of the series called **_though the journey home may be long and perilous_**, which will include a variety of fics. Keep an eye out for 'em.

Safe travels,

\- dktsubani


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